


Involution

by Mareel



Series: Indiscretion [9]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: First Time, Friendship, Love, M/M, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mareel/pseuds/Mareel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The layers within.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Involution

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place on the night following "The Shipment". It is the follow-up to [Incomplete](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1877190) and is Jonathan's voice. 
> 
> This is the final part of this series, begun in 2003. I've had the title and notes for the ending since then, but needed time to work through it. My thanks to all of you who've stayed with me throughout and encouraged me to finish it.

__________________________________________________

 

I’m seldom speechless – usually talking too much is my downfall. But Malcolm’s kiss left me completely at loss for words. I don’t even know if I kissed him back, I was so stunned by the turn of events. Then he slipped away before I could make any reply.

He told me he could still feel my touch from months ago. I can still taste his lips on mine, still feel the warmth from when he so briefly held his body against me, still feel as if my heart is racing at the thought that he might return the feelings I’ve been trying to put behind me as an impossibility.

He seemed to be leaving it in my hands and I know what I need to do now. After returning Porthos to my cabin, I retrace my long ago steps to his quarters. Suddenly I wonder if this is really the right choice… is it really the right time? My hand is trembling a little as I press the door chime. When the door slides open, I reach that hand out to Malcolm. All my hesitation dissipates when he takes it in his own and draws me closer, never taking his eyes from mine. 

I lift my other hand to touch his cheek, brushing my fingertips lightly across his skin. He leans into the touch as his arm slips around me. I kiss _him_ this time, beginning as softly as we left off the first kiss, but when I feel his lips parting I can’t help but deepen it, wanting to convey some part of what I’m feeling. 

As it ends, he searches my eyes, and takes a breath.

“I love you, Jonathan Archer. I’ve known that for a long time now. But I didn’t know if you still wanted me… I’ve been such an arse.”

I lay my fingertips across his lips and pull him completely into my arms, feeling every point of contact and longing for even more. His words wash over me, sinking into my heart and warming me as I’ve never felt warmed before. The mission, the Expanse… it all recedes into the background. All I want in this moment is to hold him, to feel him holding me, touching me.

“And I love you, Malcolm… That hasn’t ever changed.”

I don’t even try to stop my hands now, wanting to learn every part of him, wanting to see and feel his every response to my touch – the small sighs, the sharp intake of his breath as one hand slides down his back pulling him more tightly against me – needing him to know with no shadow of uncertainty just how much I want him. 

“Malcolm… let me show you, let me love you.

__________________________________________________

 

Lying together on his narrow bunk, legs still intertwined, arms around one another, Malcolm’s head rests on my shoulder as our breathing slowly returns to something closer to normal. His hand strokes lazy circles on my chest, as I smooth a few strands of damp hair back from his forehead. 

Malcolm’s voice is soft, almost dreamlike. “I never knew it could be like this… you seeming to know just how to touch me… in every way.”

“I’ve never wanted more than this, Malcolm… to hold you, to touch you, to feel your body answering mine, just to love you and know you love me too.”

I shift a little so that I can see his face. 

“You just keep revealing more and more of yourself, so much that I’d told myself never to expect. After you gave me your answer all those months ago, I thought I’d never see more than the surface you show to the world. I thought Trip was the most goddamned lucky bastard in the world, to be able to share your life and love. Then when something happened to end that, all I wanted was to see you happy again, but you were so closed-in. I knew you were hurting, but there was so little I could offer that would help.”

His arm slides around my waist, his eyes closing for a moment, almost as if he were reliving those days with me. There is more that I want to share with him though. Maybe it will help him find a measure of peace. 

“Trip never told me what happened between you, but not that long ago he and I were just talking for the first time in quite awhile. Out of nowhere, he said that he hoped Malcolm would find someone he could really love, that he hated seeing you as closed off as you were.

“I didn’t know how to respond to that, and idly picked up something I’d never seen on his desk before… a beautiful seashell, one of those tightly spiraled ones. Maybe you’ve seen it.”

Malcolm nods, remembering. “It was a gift from his sister. I think he put it out on his desk hoping it would remind him of happier days.”

“You know how the outer edge of it kind of flares out and lets you just begin to glimpse the interior, but you know there are layer and layers deep inside that you can’t begin to know. I told him it reminded me of you, Malcolm – a complicated and very private man. Trip stopped talking when I said that, and looked me straight in the eyes. Then he said, ‘Jonny, I don’t know what’s at the center of that spiral. But knowing Mal, it’s gotta be a pretty important part of who he is, something he’s tried to hide for a long time. Maybe it’s something you’ll get to see one day.’”

The depths I’m seeing in Malcolm’s eyes make me certain. 

“I think maybe I just have.”

__________________________________________________

 


End file.
